"Damn it, my dick's nearly frozen numb."
A quiet grumble sounded, and snow fell away from several of the unremarkable-looking snowdrifts.
As the snow on their surfaces fell away, the seemingly natural snowdrifts revealed part of their true forms.
They were a group of humans.
Or, to be precise, they were people from the Star Luo Empire.
Their reason for coming here was simple.
According to a highly reliable rumor, there appeared to be traces of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast.
An ordinary Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast was nothing special, but one on the verge of taking human form was another matter entirely.
If they captured it, whether they used it themselves or sold it at auction, it would be a priceless treasure.
That was why the Star Luo Empire had even gone out of its way to send its only Level 8 Soul Engineer
to the Sun Moon Empire's underground black market, the Brook Alliance, where he bought a Level 9 Soul Tool called the God Sealing Platform.
It was all to capture this Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast on the verge of taking human form.
Now Heavenly Fiend Douluo Huang Jinxu looked at the man who kept complaining that his dick was nearly frozen and said softly, "Wu Chi, you should know that the Soul Tools in your hands cost over ten million each."
"Bear with it. If Elder Jing really doesn't catch that Soul Beast, none of us will have an easy time taking responsibility."
Hearing that, Wu Chi could only grit his teeth.
At that moment, he was also cursing up a storm. Under the original plan,
or rather, given his usual strength, he could have withstood the cold here as a Soul Douluo. But to avoid alarming their quarry, they weren't allowed to use Soul Power either and had to endure it with their bodies.
And no matter how strong a Titled Douluo's body was, unless it had an ice attribute, the longer they stayed here, the more the bitter cold would numb and freeze their body.
That was why Wu Chi, despite being a Soul Douluo, was trembling involuntarily and could barely endure it.
Meanwhile, not far away, inside a cave on a snowy mountain,
was a girl who appeared to be seventeen or eighteen, her skin as luminous and white as ice that had not melted for ten thousand years. Her long hair was a pure, flawless snow-white, falling smoothly all the way to her feet, with tiny ice crystals glimmering faintly between the strands.
Her eyes were a clear, translucent sky blue, limpid and ethereal, carrying the chill of the Far North's ice and snow. Even when her gaze was calm, it held the majesty of one looking down upon all things, and her eyelashes were snow-white as well.
Her features were delicate and lovely, their lines cool and sharp, her lips pale, untouched by worldly concerns.
She wore a plain white dress without any needless gold, silver, pearls, or jade. Its fabric seemed woven from condensed ice and snow, and stray snowflakes drifted from its hem as it moved.
She was tall and well-proportioned, with a pure, aloof bearing, like a winter plum blossoming alone on a snowy plain. A faint chill from the Far North lingered around her all year round. Though she had human form, she naturally carried the oppressive presence of a ruler of ice nearly seven hundred thousand years old.
And she was the ruler of these Far North Ice Plains, the Snow Empress.
Looking at the hundred-thousand-year-old Immortal Herb-grade snow lotus before her, whose consciousness was about to be erased, she sighed and said softly,
"I'm sorry. If there is another life, I will repay this debt."
With that, the Snow Empress raised a hand and waved it, completely erasing the snow lotus's consciousness.
Feeling the hidden injury within her body, a trace of unwillingness flashed in the Snow Empress's eyes.
During the sixth great tribulation, he had been left with some hidden problems.
As he continued cultivating afterward, and after he made his move during the collision of the continents,
those hidden problems had gradually become an injury to his origin that was ultimately difficult to heal.
Under these circumstances, if he challenged the seventh great tribulation, it would be no different from going off to be reincarnated.
The Snow Empress had her own pride and obsessions. She had cultivated to this stage, so why should she go and throw her life away?
He had even considered whether a Snow Empress with little time left might take the ultimate ice origin and directly destroy an empire.
Then he saw this snow lotus. If she used a special secret method, she had a chance to take human form again.
Although this path was highly dangerous, it was still a little safer than continuing to live as a Soul Beast.
After all, she did not have much time left.
After a complicated sigh, the Snow Empress had been about to begin her transformation when she finally detected the faint Soul Power fluctuations Wu Chi had quietly released to warm his body.
For the safety of the Far North, he revealed himself at that moment, silver-white light blanketing the sky and covering the earth. It was as though the end of the world had come.
That power, which stood even above a Super Douluo's, made the people of the Star Luo Empire turn pale. It could only be one person: one of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, and perhaps even their leader.
They had actually wanted to capture a being like that!?
At that moment, they felt they must have gone mad, and as they fled, they only wished their mothers had given them two more legs.
The Snow Empress paid no heed to a force of two or three Titled Douluo accompanied by Soul Douluo. He was worried that these humans would slaughter the Soul Beasts of the Far North on a massive scale.
But after he called upon his power, he sensed something strange. Or rather, under her spiritual perception, Tian Meng's power had returned.
In an instant, the Snow Empress's original desire to take human form vanished completely.
With Tian Meng's million-year spiritual power, neither she nor the Ice Empress would have to worry about the great tribulations anymore.
And so the Snow Empress rushed straight toward Tian Meng, heedless of her life.
Meanwhile, the Ice Empress here had effectively resigned herself to her fate, albeit indirectly. There was nothing she could do.
Huo Yuhao's talent was plain to see, Tian Meng still had his methods, and on top of that, there was Electrolux before her. He could sense the power in that divine sense; even at his peak, he might not have been able to contend with it.
Just as Tian Meng was about to undo the Trust Gu, Electrolux's expression changed abruptly, and he went on full alert.
Jade-like silver-white light instantly covered the entire sky, sweeping dark clouds along with it.
A cool, furious voice rang out.
"Tian Meng, how dare you!"
As Electrolux stood on full alert, the Snow Empress finally appeared.
The moment he saw the Snow Empress, Tian Meng's plump body gave an involuntary shudder.
You've got to be kidding. No, how did we lure her here?
He had once been jealous. When he had finally been about to leave, the Snow Empress hadn't even appeared to stop him. Hadn't something apparently happened to her?
As for the Snow Empress, her first glance fell on Electrolux, wariness in her eyes. When she then looked at Tian Meng, her gaze was filled with blazing fury.
"Tian Meng, I thought you were just a lucky, long-lived Ice Silkworm. You may not have had much of a bottom line, and you certainly were good at dreaming, wanting to marry the Ice Empress."
"But I never imagined you'd be such a coward and such a piece of trash that you'd surrender to humans, and now you're even helping them hunt down an overlord of our Far North. Do you really think there's no one left in the Far North to stop you?"